1 i|)Etotttiii 


! 1 

iiliil 




Class 

Book... 

CoipglitN^, 



CrOEURIGHT DEPOSm 



^uhUt^ 



BY 

ARTHUR WENTWORTH HEWITT 
Author of ''Harp of the North'* 




The Tuttle Company, Publishers 

Rutland, Vermont 
1920 



^''i% 






Copynght, 1920 
By Arthur Wentworth Hewitt 



g)CU605433 

m IS 1921 



L 



TO 

The Reverend Leon Morse 

Pastor of St. JohrCs Methodist Episcopal Church 

Dover, New Hampshire 



POEMS 




Inferno 


9 


Paradise and the Financial Agent 


44 


Homer's Spilliad .... 


49 


An Automobubblesome Troublesome 




Song ...... 


56 


Unholy Scriptures .... 


59 


Blink of the Moon .... 


65 


Lines Omitted from Buchan's Ancient 


Ballads ..... 


69 


Bridget O'Brien .... 


73 


Duncan Bliss .... 


76 


Longing 


77 


The Failure 


78 


Polly Foss 


79 


Song of Pumpkin Blossom HiUi 


80 


In Husking Time .... 


82 


Witchery of the Weird . 


84 


Old Tate 


86 


Maiden Voyage to the Isles of 




Shoals ..... 


87 


Rhyming the Booming Brine . 


88 


Glis 


91 


The Inquest 


94 


Episcopal Apostrophe 


95 


Frae Ane to T'ither 


98 


Epistle to J. Howard Flower . 


101 


Epistle to Mrs. Nellie E. Morse . 


106 


Cursory Remarks of an Amateur 




Theologian .... 


112 


Epistle to Leon .... 


121 



INFERNO. 

In the midway of this my mortal life 

I lost myself (Don't mention to my wife) 

At evening in a solemn vistaed wood. 

Majestic in the somber solitude 

Rose, crowned with laurel, stern and sad and 

bitter, 
An ancient poet. Whooping at the critter, 
I asked his name. ''My name,'' he said, 

''is Dante. 
Six hundred years ago^ in every shanty 
Of Hell, I made some pastoral calls with 

Virgil, 
My old presiding elder. Though to urge ill 
Becomes it me, you have a chance to learn, oh 
Lots and lots and lots about Inferno, 
The big nice parish where the ninnies burn so." 
"Now that," I chuckled, "beats the moving 

pictures! 



151166100 

I'm much obliged! I'll get my hat! Your 

strictures 
Upon those hoboes, fierce old Ghibelline, 
Are great! Let hunger make my rib a lean 
Dry bone ere I this circus miss! So sweet it 
Will seem to see it all. Now Dante, beat it!" 

Forthwith the eminent comedian 
Began the hike. He knew how greedy an 
Explorer he conducted; sooth to tell 
No visit ever I had made to Hell 
Though often I, with seeming earnestness, 
Had been advised to go. Sohcitous 
Acquaintances will sometimes hiss at us 
A hint to drop in at that f urnaced nest, 
And so I did, with Dante chaperon. 
(Who paid for such a whippersnapper on 
The road his fare? I answer, 'tis a vile age 
And copiously had I provided mileage.) 

And yet 'twas not a mile. Imagination 
(As often) was the road to Hell's dominions 
Whereof this epic is a true narration 

10 



And not a matter of a man's opinions. 
I jot in journals what I see arise — 
Not theologically theorize. 
I should appear a lop-eared ass if I 
These reprobates should try to classify. 

We shot across the glooms of the abyss, 

I bumped against the moon. ''What world 

is this? 
Did devils play the planet a dirty caper 
Or did it find a German 'scrap of paper?' 
It is so ragged, dead, and black and bleak." 
I sat upon a jagged crater's peak 
To rest; but Dante yelled, "O Moonstruck 

man! 
Get up and go to Hell fast as you can! 
Or we cannot get in! A wealthy clan 
(Myopic, though it wreck the hope of 

nations) , 
The Senate asks /or all the reservations^^ 
(November nineteen-hundred-and-nineteen 
The journal reads — this tells you what I 

mean.) 

11 



15u6ble0 

So, hasting, lest a prior hold on Hell 
Exclude us, whizzing streakily pell mell 
Like zigzag lightning past the universe, 
We shot so fast a bullet is a hearse. 
And found an inky door where doth appear : 
*'A11 soap abandon, ye who enter here!" 

While Dante chose the key that would unlock 

it, 
I pulled my Baedeker out of my pocket 
To study this malodorous first victim 
And why Old Nick with such bad taste had 

picked him. 
But he was not recorded. "Here the tourist,'^ 
Said Dante, "sees a nincompoop the poorest" 
(He wiped his megaphone) "of all our list-ins. 
When Harp of the North was new he made his 

jaw go 
(The kind which Samson used to kill Phil- 
istines) 
As critic in a city called Chicago." 
At first I thought, "Oh what a mess I'm in!" 
Then bent to see the sorry specimen. 

12 



TBufi&leg 

I thumped his pate, it sounded dull and 

thuddy; 
The former it has ever been; the latter 
(Occasioned by the skull being thick with 

muddy 
Matter of the kind that doesn't matter) 
Was matter still of mystery and study. 
"Oh why," I shouted, "Mr. Dante, can't he 
Sound hollow as he is? It is surprising, 
Still, here are brains, however stiff!" But 

Dante, 
The history of the thick head analyzing. 
Said, ''Brains were never there. Upon a 

hummock 
The Devil ate a critic at a picnic. 
The imps all yelled, 'Alas! You will be sick, 

Nick!' 
With nasty nausea knocking at his stomach, 
Vok BldbV the Devil said. 'I cannot wait, an 
Immediately necessary pot 
Go get me — ' Quick they skip to wait on 

Satan — 
'The emptiest receptacle you've got!' 



13 



15u66le0 

Then over Hell the harum-scarums scurry- 
But nothing was so empty or so hollow 
In Hell as was the head (which in a hurry 
They brought) of him whose history we follow. 
'Tis just the thing!' said Nick, 'Alack, you 

waited 
Almost too long!' then he evacuated 
His vitals of his vomit in the skull, 
And sent it to Chicago when 'twas full 
To criticise imaginative meter." 
Just here the Devil heaved him in a heater 
To bake the other half. "Are you amused?" 
Said Dante. I, a little bit confused. 
Replied, "My answer must be quite symbolic. 
In perfect evening dress a youth will, maybe, 
While waiting for his girl, pick up the baby, 
But when the little brat becomes hydraulic 
He wishes that he hadn't. Not to kick, 
This sight is so insipid I am sick. 
Unbeautiful and bad is this bucolic, 
I can't speak highly of Exhibit A," 

Then Dante wheeled and striding led the way. 
14 



15u661e0 

Achilles' ghost across the asphodel 

Ran on low gear compared with him. "In 

Hell," 
He said, ''if one would know what hellish art 

meant 
We show the senatorial department. 
'The windmill of the damned' the demons 

call it, 
The hall of howling Lodge and Bob La 

Follette.'' 
The former rose to speak. "0 hold your nose! 

You're 
To witness mentally indecent exposure!" 
Too late and needless was the warning uttered, 
The speech was fine as pop-corn doubly 

buttered. 
Amazed, I cried, "0 please explain to me 
This copious bray become a symphony." 
"Ridiculous when blatted in the senate 
A speech of his may win blue ribbons when it 
Is spoken in the place where it belongs." 
I took the answer in my mental tongs. 
Nor could believe that even here such brows 



15 



Were laureled. ''Show/' I said, "the lower 

House/' 
"There is no lower house than this! You 

know it!" 
Explosively explaining, cried my poet. 
And pulled his knitting needles out to knit 
His brows; but draining off his spleen a bit. 
He added, "If you mean the other branch 
Of Congress, come along. I know the ranch, 
We dead are all good neighbors." No 

digression 
We made, but entered while they were in 

session. 

The wild disorder told us they to order 

Had called. The number present nine-and- 

twenty; 
Eleven groups, conversing round the border, 
Were murmuring loud with laughter good and 

plenty. 
Behind their newspapers the rest were 

sprawling. 
Save what were snoring, and the member 

bawling 

16 



His speech for the Congressional Recorder 
Upon the Brimstone Tariff. No one heard him 
Except himself and I perhaps have slurred him 
To say that he did, since he let it go 
Right on like rivers, time, and death and woe, 
Save when some member came awake and 

butted 
Right in and rolled away again to sleep. 
I bent above a cuspidor to weep 
Until my cheeks with great ravines were 

rutted, 
It was so like my own, my native land, 
While wandering on a foreign brimstone 

strand. 

But Dante called a jitney for to go. 

*'0 bawl no more ! In Guinea or Gehenna 

The pigeonholes that ought to hold these 

men are. 
Be cheerful. Next, what program shall I 

show?" 
I said, ' 'Please show me your infernal women, 
My social sensibilities I swim in." 



17 



We dug our toes into a mighty hill 
And climbed like demons treading in a mill. 
(Above Nisqually Canon, I've ascended 
The castled crags of Eagle Peak; I've bended 
From Glacier Point in lone Yosemite, 
Sublime and swooning gulfs below to see; 
And I have crossed the looming, jagged 

Rockies; 
Mount Shasta I have seen, and Mount 

Rainier, 
But never such a mountain as was here.) 
We clambered up like adolescent gawkies 
That climb a sandbank. Flying into passion, 
I yelled, ''Why climb? My bellows it 

distresses!" 
But Dante said, ''This is the Height of 

Fashion. 
It holds those girls who cut so low their 

dresses 
They show to any peeping silly cuss 
The suburbs of a bare umbilicus." 
(One dictionary calls it nmhi-like-us, 
But this with approbation cannot strike us.) 

18 



Now this encouraged me a modicum, 

And swiftly up the slanting road I come 

And, scrambling o'er the top with many a 

chuckle, 
I snicker to watch Dante strain and knuckle 
To keep in sight. He had been dead too long 
His privileges to appreciate. 
A glutton going from the grease he ate 
Of pork, with brandy irrigation strong. 
For mush and milk is hardly going to hanker. 
It may be so with death. The coffins anchor 
To earth our frail pathetic carcasses; 
To any passion then to hark us is 
Against the rule perhaps, but whether so 
Or not, I am not hurried for to know. 
Eschatologically curious 
Ecclesiastics would be furious 
If ere we finish this Apocalypse 
Dim, bony, spectral Death should lock our 

lips. 

But suddenly we come upon the ladies. 

The deeds of one world in the next run deeper, 



19 



T5uf}b\t$ 

Therefore the flesh from every piteous shade is 
So torn away that naught is left to keep her 
Canal of apparatus called digestive 
(Nine yards or more) from rolling out un- 
covered — 
Her dress no longer merely is suggestive. 
Behind the skirts of Dante close I hovered 
And, bashful, asked if punishment so grim 
Had cured them of their pride. This tickled 

him, 
Who, snickering, answered with urbanity, 
''No! Fashion's women have a vanity 
That beats all Hell's arrangements. Look 

and see 
How each before a mirror thinks that she 
Surpasses all her mates and looks the best in 
Her own peculiar tying of intestine 
In curls around her neck or coils on head." 

I felt so sick that I could go to bed; 
As one who bites a corpulent old worm, in 
The rosy apple which it chose to squirm in. 
Is sick, if he's at all averse to vermin; 

20 



15u6&Ies 

(Particularly if a worm's obese, he 
Will taste so apoplectic, rank and greasy.) 
So I was sick at seeing sights so grim in 
The parlors of these poor infernal women. 

"This party personally is conducted," 
Said Dante. ''Not to have your fun obstructed 
I feel responsible. Put on your glasses 
And you will see perhaps some other lasses." 
"I doubt if it would be considered proper," 
I said, "If one should come this way, go stop 

her. 
Show me a deacon or a minister 
And take me to the Thursday evening meeting. 
These girlies are so bad, it's sinister 
And naughty for me to receive their greeting." 

Fat podded little dapper devils dotted 

A dingle down the mountain. One had 

knotted 
His tail around his horns to save its sagging. 
(He'd newly had it polished, and the dragging 
Takes off the shine.) He trotted to the place, 

21 



T3ubblt$ 

With jack-o-lantern jolly grinning face. 
He pointed straight at me and said to Dante, 
"This boob would like to see our graveyard. 

Can't he? 
I'll show him all the dead ones for a quarter — 
I used to be on earth. I was a porter." 

I said, "Each other surely we have seen 
July in nineteen hundred and fifteen, 
At Yellowstone — Colonial — in twihght — " 
He swore and spat his cud up through the 

skylight. 
I saw I had unjustly him offended, 
My person in apology I bended, 
And patted him upon the back and belly, 
And said in words as nice as apple jelly: 
"Your pardon — all the porters there were 

vicious. 
You have a humor that is quite delicious — 
But what about that graveyard? When to God, 
Or Hell, the soul is shelled out of one's pod 
Like peas and beans, the earth retains the 

bodies. 



15u6lJle0 

Say you that where the pea is there the pod is?" 
The comicalest wriggle on his face is, 
He says, "The circumstances alter cases." 

A booming noise I heard. An impish bumpkin 
Was dinging with a paddle on a pumpkin. 
There are no chu'rch bells, as you know, in 

Tophet, 
They have to use a pumpkin, though it's 

no fit. 
"What's that?" I said. He said it was the 

curfew. 
"It tolls the knell of parting day. The 

ploughman 
Will plod — more likely he has plodded now, 

man. 
We worked him overtime, once, and the fur 

flew. 
But come, you Old MortaHty, and look 
On tombs — the landscape-garden scheme we 

took 
From this," he grinned — ''Spoon River'' 

was the book. 



23 



T3u6file0 

I might have read among the tombs for ages, 
He snickered — his proboscis in the pages. 
I, questioning what bodies in this gulf are, 
Read, peering through an afterglow of sulphur: 

"A skinner of skunk, 

In the odor of sanctity 
Died in his hunk; 

The Almighty was thanked that He 
Hauled into Heaven 

Or hurled into Hell of him 
All {it was little) 

That one couldnH smell of him.'' 

Of course the monuments were of asbestos. 
Not ancient slate or granite. When we rest us 
We buy the latter, and it costs big money — 
The former was much better, it was funny; 
And no memorial of any marble 
Is cheering as the quaint old rhymes they 

warble. 
But here I saw a grave — this rich old boss 
Refused me once a dime for the Red Cross. 



24 



^'His rarity 
Charity f 

Body {with soul 
On a parity) 

Rolled to this hole 
For to wear it he 
Growing too stingy 
Escaped from the dingy 

Old body so brittle 
And left it behind him. 

His soul is so little 
The Devil can't find him J' 

It seems that Hell foreclosed and took his 

carcass 
For soul he never had, and they were sharkers. 

A tomb with finger pointing toward Arcturus 
Disclosed this epitaph, the next to lure us : 

"His soul gone to God, he 

Could preach like a river, 
But here is his body. 
Old Nick had his liver." 

I saw the name of one who was (though 
bilious) 

25 



Sermonis factor atque Dei filius. 

I looked at Jock. "Sometimes," with 

cheerful nod, he 
Replied, ''We lose the soul and get the body. 
Good soul he had, and still in glory hath. 
This next one, but he wouldn't take a bath." 

''In hliss went Ms soul up 

To swim 
But Hell filled this hole up 

With him.'' 

''Beneath those rugged elms, that yew tree^s" 

shadow 
The turf had got the heaves — it puffed like 

mad. O 
Aghast I stood to see the puffs of smoke 
That smelly from the gravetop often broke! 

"Smoked like a ham 

Nearly hlack, 
How pickled I am 

In tobacco!'' 

So ran the lines and so I ran along, 

But met another stink that stank so strong 



26 



iBuUtiles; 

I turned out for it, but it came across till 

It filled and fumigated every nostril. 

I wept some tears while Jock was weeping 

ichor 
Then saw a brewer buried in his liquor; 
Near him a drunkard wearing no apparel 
(I peeked into the bunghole) but a barrel. 
The latter had a stone — but Jock grew warmer 
And said that Hell would fain forget the 

former. 

''Pickled in hooze is 
My body. It snoozes. 
My soul without stopping 
Is howling and hopping J' 

Jock wiped his ichor with a snicker. ''Mark! 
This corpse," he said, "o'erheard, when stiff 

and stark, 
The undertaker talking of his bier — 
Misunderstood; sat up, and answered, 'Here!' '' 
"0 Jock," I cried, "what awful fibs you fib 

us!" 
Jock answered, "He was always full or 

gibbous." 

27 



Then rose a monument amazing, half 

A mile in height which bore this epitaph : 

''Death cannot halk 

Mr. Lucifer. 
The Lord had her talk 

And the Devil the use of her. 
Neither was pleased 
Till this monument squeezed 

Out the juice of her.^' 

I said to Jock, ''I think I'd better go 
Back to my chaperon. This shocks me so! 
It is a grave affair and it may squash 
My taste for poetry/' Jock answered, 

''Bosh!" 
Untied his peaked tail and scratched his back, 
Then turned and trotted backward on his 

track. 
''I would not leave a brother in the lurch in 
A graveyard," said the grinning little urchin. 

We found old Dante sitting on a griddle. 
Cracking the devil's mother-in-law a riddle. 
Until, to pay the poet soine diversion, 

28 



T3ubblt$ 

She caught and played an old sonorous fiddle 
And sang as if her voice would split her middle 
A song she called, 'The Sabbath Day Ex- 
cursion." 

"The Devil came dapper up out of his Hell, 
La whoop! The Devil! La whoop! 

The Devil he dallied at not a hotel, 
To church went tripping his troop. 

"The Devil came fiddling into the fold, 
La whoop! The Devil! . La whoop! 

But he found the funny old flock so cold 
The Devil half died of the croup. 

"But he found the feel of the sermon so dry, 
La whoop! for the croup in his group! 

It cured him quick as a wink of the eye. 
La whoop! The Devil! La whoop!" 

Insulted, all my kindly manners froze up. 
I elevated, what I could, my nose up. 
''You've waited, Dante. Sorry!" I said 

with unction. 
He said, "Though waiting isn't quite my 

function 



29 



I much prefer this place to Essex Junction." 

I asked him for a quarter, paid up Jock, 

And said, "We'll now inspect another block." 

Great guide was Dante! He would not get 

lost on 
The crookedest old corkscrew street in Boston; 
He marched along — to tell the scenery 
Would strain my epical machinery 
And, since I have no other medium, 
I'm torn with terror at the tedium 
'Twould take to tell you how these creatures 

carnal 
Bump down to Tophet from enclosures 

charnel, 
Like water dropping through a colander, 
Or a Kaiser turned to a count and Hollander. 
I have been hunting — 'twas monotony, 
For beast or bird I never shot any, 
And cheerfully I've cracked my Christmas 

walnut 
To find it half was worm instead of all nut, 
But would not have you call my epic dull 

30 



When you have cracked it on your bony skull. 
I've ploughed my mind — at least what's 

arable 
In hopes you'd chew this crop of parable. 
But I must hasten — being Dante's Boswell 
Is work that exercises both my jaws well. 
We came past lakes of sinners, where they 

burn 'em 
With ceaseless conflagration in aeternum, 
And Dante often cast a line to fish up 
A dessicated deacon or a bishop. 
I said, 'If saints like these are in the lurch, 
Where are those pesky pillars of the church 
Who praise a minister before his features, 
Then carp behind his back? They are the 

creatures 
Who praise a girl for teaching little kiddies. 
Then poison neighborhoods against her." 

"Hid is 
To Hellish wisdom panging pain sufficient 
To heckle hard enough such soul-deficient 
And facially-reduplicated folk." 

31 



My guide here paused to gag. Again he spoke, 
''Hell's science will not always be infirm on 
The point, for we are using lots of German 
Advice since Hindenburg encountered trouble. 
But temporarily Beelzebub'll 
Refuse to take the folks with faces double 
Until the imps have split them into parts 
As many as their faces, each which smarts 
As if the total Tophet it had gotten — 
They split quite easily, they are so rotten.' ' 

"Contentedly he cuddled in the ooze," 
Wrote Mrs. Stratton-Porter of a frog, 
But like a hundred hiccoughing with booze. 
Or half a hundred bullfrogs on a log, 
I heard an orchestra of gulping sound. 
And looked where ninety imps were scattered 

round, 
Each doubled with his sternum on his stomach, 
Each crowned the crater of a brimstone 

hummock. 
Oh how the wretches retched in wretched woe. 
All gagging to the tune of Old Black Joe! 

32 



Just then the Kaiser cannoned through the 

roof, 
(Of late, you know, it has been rather leaky, 
And yet his passing didn't make a squeak, he 
So little was of soul.) No badge of hoof 
Or horn was needed for this person's proof. 
I knew not how he fell, so feathery 
His head was, but his heart was leathery. 
"Keep Watch upon his Rind,'' said Satan, 

turning 
Unto the imps, '^and keep the home fires 

burning r' 
But I had lost, as who of us has not? 
All interest in this boss of Herr von Gott. 

Across our road was an impediment 
Which stopped my making all the head I 

meant 
To make. It was a big asbestos coffin 
The imps were sending some poor fellow off in. 
They nailed him in (they used their tails for 

hammers) 

*'Why do you send him back?" the poet 

stammers. 

33 



TBubUm 

*'He was a politician," said the devil. 
'Thofugh in his company on earth I revel, 
This venture was a failure. We, with 

unction, 
And bus and band met him at Judgment Junc- 
tion. 
We brought him where we thought he couldn't 

balk us. 
Crowded the room with devils to the wall. 
But he mistook us for an earthly caucus 
And never knew the difference at all. 
Last year the same mistake when a presiding 
Elder was shunted off on Pitchfork Siding. 
When we unloaded him, exhorterly 
He cried, 'Now please provide my salary!' 
He thought that I was Brother Mallory, 
And we a conference — the quarterly. 
Now, Dante, is there any courtesy 
That I can show? You'll tear your shirt 

I see 
For this poor verdant innovator's sake; 
You work so hard it almost makes me ache. 
I'll show you Vanderfeller from the larder 

34 



TBubhlea 

Or cubist artist, or a free verse bard, or 
Dust some Republicans stacked in the attic 
(This world has lately been so Democratic!) 
Or anything you want." 

Then Dante cried, 
''Come down! Come down, where HelPs 

worst woe is tried 
And let us see, and let us hear him scream, 
Your sorest tortured soul in pain supreme !'' 

"With pleasm*e!'^ Satan said, and led the 

way 
Through mire, where snakes gigantic hissed 

at bay. 
Through blowing furnaces of choking coke, 
And seas of ink, where the Hearst papers soak. 
By all the horror of the Prussian trenches. 
Full dress receptions, ten artistic stenches. 
Past all which pains the ear or stumps the 

nasal 
Intake, the devil leads the way arid pays all 
The tips. At last he cried, "See yon abysses! 



35 



T3ubblt$ 

Eventually, why not now! O this is 

The place you sought, right bower, ace and 

joker 
Of all the tortures ! Dickon, fetch the poker !" 

I peered far down and saw a resident 

Resembling much our honored President. 

But something was amiss. The more they 
poked him. 

The more he laughed as if Mark Twain had 
joked him. 

The more they burned him with their fires 
infernal. 

The more he sang with happiness supernal. 

The more they grilled him with their cannon- 
ading. 

The more he danced with jubilee unfading. 

The devil sputtered, ''Get the bill of lading, 

There's something wrong!" 

''Or shall I call the postman?" 
I ventured. 

"Shut your mouth or be a ghost, man!" 

36 



T5ub6le0 

Said Satan, mad. "Were postal service 

chosen, 
He would not have arrived till this were 

frozen." 

(This with a gesture.) Up the burning bank 
He called an officer who bore the rank, 
Second Lieutenant, highest known on earth. 
"Immediately justify this mirth !'^ 
With mountain-shaking thunder roared the 

devil. 
"In harshest Hell why doth that mortal 

revel?" 
"Excuse me. Doctor Devil, he," I reckoned 
"Misunderstandeth your diplomacy." 
(It does look lame, writ in my pome, I see !) 
He flailed me with his peaked tail a second, 
Quite peeved that on his discipline I butted, 
His brows like rocks at Marblehead both 
jutted. 

The officer, as was his wont, saluted 

The devil, and thus the charges all confuted : 

37 



15u6file0 

"This soul was sent us at three-j&fty-seven, 
By errcw, and should go at four-eleven. 
He for the New Jerusalem was freighted, 
But he got loaded wrong at Judgment 

Junction. 
(Trainmen are always careless of their 

function.) 
He was marked C. O. D. and nicely crated. 
We took him just to please him — haven't 

told him 
It isn't heaven (as he^believes) doth hold him. 
The place he came from was so mean and 

scrappy 
That he with this relief is very happy." 
I felt concerned, for no one should, or could 

row 
The navy of state like our heroic Woodrow. 
Just then I swooned, for flashing angels shone, 
And when I woke, we poets were alone. 

I asked of Dante, did he know New York? 

(A credit to the populating stork) 

He sobbed as sorrow of his life would rob him. 



38 



He wept, like bottles when you pull the cork, 
So much I had to take a mop and swab him. 
I cried, ''O bard who dost not fear a gate 
Of Hell, why take on so, and irrigate?" 
He sobbed, 'If I had known it earlier 
The pearly gates had opened pearlier 
To gulp me in. For who can write on Hell 
Unless he knows New York? You know it 
well?" 

I answered, with a few apologies. 

That I had lectured in its colleges 

And inter-state assemblies just a little, 

Also at banquets after eating victual. 

And in the Metropolitan Museum 

Have watched the pictures, for I love to see 

'em. 
There, too, I met an oriental mummy 
Pickled so long that he was rather gummy. 
And from the summit of the Wool worth 

tower 
Gazing aghast, afar, a thrilling hour, 
I've seen the whole sublime, dumfounding 

show, 

39 



TSU 66100 

With pismire autos crawling far below. 
And I have even gone at evening dewy 
To the celestial quarters of chop suey. 
But only once I found a son of Satan — 
In Stammer's bookstore on Fourth Avenue. 
(Perhaps he's gone — I hope they have a new 
And decent man the musty trade to wait on) 
He had no manners — I beg his pardon ! 
My conscience jabs me with a vicious jog; 
My fellow mortal I would not be hard on — 
He had — they were the manners of a hog." 
I, stopping to regard the somber bard on 
The smoke upholstered (petrified) old log 
Just heard, ''It's one of Tophet's biggest 

suburbs — 
It looks colossal if you've known but a scrub 

wr6s." 

We rose to go and Dante asked if I 
Would write to recommend him by and by, 
That is, if I approved him as a pilot. 
'I'm glad," I said, "Such writing falls to my lot. 
For you and Virgil have the run of Hell, 

40 



TBubblts 

No other guides could learn it half so well, 
And Virgil's getting old." He bowed and 

stooped, 
Delighted that he had the business cooped. 

Then suddenly he cocked his eye and squinted 
Into my face. "What troubles you?" he 

hinted. 
"I'm doleful for each dismal dufferin 
Those deeps of senatorial suffering. 
I love so much our own good Dillingham 
That I could never think of grilling him. 
The father of a rural cleric, a 
Good father, best in all America 
Once told his booby boy in auld lang syne, 
There is your model dignified and fine, 
A noble gentleman!' And now 'tis night, 
And father's in his grave, and he was right. 
Besides, when dad was little, from a bully 
This statesman saved him. I respect him 

fully. 
And when I write up Hell's geography 
I'd think that such men from its bog are free." 

41 



"Well, did you see him here?" said Dante, 

gaunter 
With care, "The climate's hot for a Ver- 

monter." 
"Of Washington I've had a sniff, I can't 
Find necessarily significant 
A statesman's being absent from his pew, it 
Is frequent." Dante chortled then, "Why, 

Hewitt! 
When these arrived I saw them sally by, 
And I can swear your man an alibi." 

We walked where burning sulphur and blue 

smoke 
Resembled gloaming on July the Fourth, 
And Dante took my arm and kindly spoke 
Of me as poet (which is praise much worth.) 
I, modest, answered thus the bard sublime: 
"Not so, but I manipulate in rhyme 
A knack — a knack an academic hack 
(This measure cackles like a cuckoo clock, 
Or maybe hiccoughs) likes to kick and knock, 
But cannot kill. Ambition is eternal 

42 



And I am bound to be a bard infernal, 

Just like yourself! When I go back to earth, 

I'll write my own Inferno by my hearth!'' 

Then red with anger as a poppy, right 
On me he turned. " You steal my copyright? 
You dare not, plaigarist obstreperous. 
With imitated poems pepper us!" 
He, mad as Agamemnon, bitter bard. 
Gave me a kick jack-asinine and hard. 
Which hurled me out of Hell and broke the 

bars. 
Thence issuing, I again beheld some stars. 

November, 1919. 



43 



13u66le0 



PARADISE AND THE FINANCIAL 
AGENT. 

One morn a steward at the gate 

Of Heaven stood disconsolate. 

(Appropriated nearly whole, 

That rhyme from Tommy Moore I stole.) 

That steward stood at the key-hole 

And whined in quavering voice and thin, 

''Oh, please! I want to come like sin, 

O Simon Cephas Peter, in!" 

And Peter, puttering about. 

Said, drawHng, ''That I do not doubt. 

What did you do while you were out?" 

"My life I parsed without a smirch, 

Financial agent of the church 

On Greenhorn Hills of backwoods birch!" 

"And penniless left you in the lurch 
Your pastor?" 

"No, he had his pay, 
Each dollar, ere he went away, 

44 



'15u66le0 

On Conference's opening day. 

Four hundred (oft my work was praised) 

Per annum dollars I have raised!" 

Saint Peter scratched his pate and gazed, 
And said, "Each year of all these years 
Leave you the salary in arrears 
Till Conference by coming clears 
The debt away? Thyself didst hump 
To hoard in one almighty lump 
The pay o'erdue by seven moons? 
Then, strutting midst thy fellow loons, 
Didst boast that thou so well hadst done 
What should have ended ere the sun 
Rose on the morning 'twas begun? 
To payless parson how shall come 
His intervening crunched crumb? 
How shall a payless parson put 
Shirt on his back or boot on foot? 
There is a natural body and 
There is a spiritual, understand 
I perfectly, but I insist 
By much that man the mark has missed 



45 



T3u66Ie0 

Who, deep in indecorum, goes 
Around arrayed in spiritual clothes 
From natural neck to natural toes. 
Elucidate as I expect. 

Ere turns the pearly knob. 
Your disappointing, plain neglect 

Of your appointed job.^^ 

"O Simon Cephas Peter, see! 
I catch the cash more easily 
Within a week of Conference. 
And week by week to pay the pence 
Would, since I am so busy, bring 
Delay unto my sugaring. 
Or harrowing, or harvesting. 
Now I am ready to come in." 

But S. C. Peter grun a grin 

And said, "All pass these portals free 

Except financial agents. They 
Come on collected salary 

Which fully in advance we pay 
To reimburse them for the work 
Which they accomplished in the kirk." 

46 



"I waive all claims of any size,'^ 
That agent said, with tearful eyes, 
"Just let me sit in Paradise!'' 
But Peter answered, "Otherwise 
The Lord has willed. Your ticket here 
Is salary for one full year, 

Which we collect and pay." 
'Then please," he snivelled now in fear, 

"To do it right away." 

"Oh no!" said Peter. "Wait a bit. 

Your ways we copy; hence 
We will attempt to gather it 
Just prior to the time we sit 

In Annual Conference." 

A terror took that tearful man. 
"0 Lord, how long," he said, 
"Before in Heaven sit I can, 
On milk and honey fed?" 

"Our Conference is closing now," 
Said Peter. "The next will be 



47 



'Bubbles 

In just one Heavenly year, and how 

'Twill figure you may see. 
With a day of God's a thousand years, 

Three hundred days and sixty-five. 
Ten centuries long each one — grave fears 
I have that with a pair of steers 
You could walk around the Zodiac, 
Gee-hawing half the distance back, 
Ere Heavenward you arrive. 
Three-sixty-five the days are quite, 

But it is fair I should declare 
That since in Heaven is no night 

A day is quite a long affair." 

Read before the Vermord Conference, 
Richford, April, 1913. 



48 



13u66Ie0 



HOMER^S SPILLIAD. 

Sing, Heavenly Muse, the wrath of me, 

A puling poet doomed to be; 

And since I would the critical nod earn. 

Sing like split of something modern! 

Your office is so far, I am 

So poor, send inspiration, ma'am. 

By telephone and cablegram; 

But sing like thunder — don't refuse, it's 

A song I want of Massachusetts, 

Not Ida, Ilion, or Greece, 

But automobile and police. 

Of invocation there is no more — 

I introduce my hero. Homer. 

Flat on his back, with gnashing teeth. 
His busted "benzine cart" beneath — 
While he was black with grease and dust. 
The air was blue with words he'd cussed. 
He thought a lot of other rot, too, 

49 



He couldn't quite express (ought not to) 
Before at last he fixed his auto. 

He wriggled out, attacked his dirt; 
He shook his coat, he brushed his shirt, 
He excavated both his ears; 
He washed his face, he combed the spears 
Of porcupiney pointing hair. 
Then cranking up his car he glided 
To where his lady love resided. 
Inquiring, Might he see her there? 

When met by maiden at the gate, 

The weather he had loudly lauded. 

''You want my mistress?" Homer nodded. 

''Respectfully I beg to state 

The lady thought it long to wait — 

Is riding with another fellow." 

Then red and green he grew and yellow 
And black at that announcement which 
Made him resemble jaundice, pitch, 
A Turner sunset, and the Itch. 
He turned away, he said his prayers — 

50 



13U661CS 

The servant thought so — they were swears — 

He stumbled o'er the family pet 

Whose purpose juvenile was set 

Upon the auto horn to toot; 

But Homer, ere he made a hoot, 

Repudiating his intention, 

Had spanked his — what I shouldn't mention. 

Then looking down the road afar, 

Receding, bounding o"'er a bar. 

He recognized his rivaPs car. 

"To ride with me the girl agreed — " 

He swore. *'At least I'll make them speed, 

And she shall see that cart of his 

As slow as Evolution is! 

I'll chase him down and show him up!" 

As bums get boozy by the bottle. 
Intoxicated by his cup 
Of rage, he hastened to unthrottle 
His leaping car and let her go. 
Recked he of consequences? No! 
No dread of fine nor law is his. 



51 



TBubblts 

Nor dollars, death, nor damages. 

He leaped into his seat, and oh! 

Full speed, he let her rip and go. 

He let her go, full speed, high gear — 

Sing, Muse, like the Old Harry here! — 

Oh down the dizzy road which swam 

In underneath the speeding car. 

He shot like lightning, grunting ''Damn!" 

As over every water bar 

He jumped with savage bumping bout. 

Half jiggling his intestines out. 

By turned-out team and dodging man 

And swirling trees he shrieked and ran 

Like candidates in politics. 

By pole and post, like whirling sticks 

Upon a hurricane leaping past. 

He sped, like a rifle bullet fast, 

And never aside an eye he cast. 

A cloud of dust behind him this 

Like Nebular Hypothesis — 

He neither knows nor cares a kiss. 

His hand is firm to guide and goad * 

The shooting car along the road. 

52 



15u66Ie0 

By houses high and homely huts 

He glides and bounds and honks and squeals. 

A yellow dog beneath his wheels 

A geyser makes of blood and guts.* 

He gains upon his rival — see! 

One spurt more, neck and neck they'll be! 

*^Way, or I take a wheel!" he cried. 

His rival sped, and way denied. 

Like lightning still he chases him. It's 

Now (neither cares) the city limits. 

The houses and the folks grow thick 

Together and the latter sick 

With fear of death, as dodging quick 

The traffic scatters far and wide. 

Policemen pussy puff and stride 

And shout at Homer hot with hate, 

"M-A-S-S Six Thousand Eight! 

Stop or I shoot as sure as fate!" 

He scarce can turn to thumb his nose 

Ere on, full speed, high gear, he goes! 



* I don't know what this word means, but it must be some- 
thing pretty nice, for it was loudly applauded when General 
Edwards used it to describe our boys in France. 



53 



15ubbU$ 

A pistol crack, a tire is burst, 
But not till Homer crashes first 
Into his rivaPs car — both cursed. 
Like rockets flew a lamp and wheel 
And forty splinters — Hark! a squeal! 
Then from the wreck rose bitter moans 
Where, catapulted on the stones. 
The girl was hurled with cruel vim 
Which broke her leg — beg pardon — limbl — 

While Homer's car with sudden flop 
Capsized, but ere its final stop. 
He somersaulted to the top, 
Then tumbled down and struck a cop 
Full in the shins. At once pell mell he 
Went sprawling. The policeman's belly 
Upon him plumped to make him jelly. 
While Homer squirmed and kicked and 

wiggled 
The gleeful urchins gaped and giggled. 
When from the incumbent cop he wriggled, 
Upon his face the city gutter 
Had spread its dirt as thick as butter. 

54 



TBu6bIe0 

He had to hawk and spit and sputter 
And blubber, ludicrous to utter. 

Ere thrice he stamped, ere twice he spat, 
The cop arose, picked up his hat 
And donned it — pot without a bail — 
And hustled Homer off to jail. 

Thanks, for assistance as desired. 
The epic's done. The Muse is fired. 



'25u66le0 



AN AUTOMOBUBBLESOME TROUBLE- 
SOME SONG. 

Though Job he had troubles, 

And friends who deserved them all, 
Automobubbles 

Had never unnerved them all. 

Double 

His trouble 

An automobubble 

Will make for the patientest man. 

Who will crawl the car under, 

Profaner than thunder. 
To tinker it right if he can. 

O Solomon married 

A lot he ought not to. 
But what if he'd carried 
Them all in his auto? 
Double 
The trouble 
An automobubble 

56 



151166100 

Would have made for that much married 
man. 

When he rides let him snub all 

His feminine club all 
He possibly peaceably can ! 

Naaman noble 

Who washed in the Jordan 
Washed no automobile, 
And couldn't afford one. 

For double 

His trouble 

An automobubble 
Will make for the man with the rag! 

Oh rub-a-dub-dub'll 

He rub all and scrub all 
The grime from the crank to the tag! 

Thy driving though, Jehu, 

We read it was furious. 
Cops never see you 

To speed law injurious. 
Double 



57 



15u66le0 

Thy trouble 

An automobubble 
Would bring to a scorcher like thee, 

When called on the docket 

To empty the pocket 
For busting the city's decree! 

Even Jonah who sank 

In a whale that had swallowed him 
Broke not a bank 

And no bill ever followed him. 

Double 

His trouble 

If an automobubble 
Instead of a whale he had got, 

Which swallowed the prophet 

But came back to cough it 
Ashore, which the bubble doth not. 



58 



T5ubblt$ 



UNHOLY SCRIPTURES. 

Read from the Speaker* s chair before the Ver- 
mont Legislature at various intervals in the 
Mock Sessions of 1913 and 1915. 

On Certain Ultimate Rites: 

{Enter the Chaplain in full clerical raiment, 
with open hook. After him the Sergeant-at- 
Arms, with a huge coffin being carted out by 
the janitor and the fireman. These come to 
bury Caesar, not to praise him.) 

Chorus of Spectators, 

Feet first down the corridor 
Cart that corpse, 'tis horrider 
Than any other you can find from Canada 
To Florida. 

Chorus of Members, 

Our reputation's dead ! 
The member from Peru 



59 



13u66le0 

Has knocked it in the head, 
Has talked it very dead, 
Boo! Hoo! Hoo! 

Chorus of Spectators. 

To the weird lamentation 

We listen, we hark us. 
Their own reputation. 

Oh that is the carcass. 
And what could kill such? 

Oh listen then, hark! 
'Twas taking too much 

Peruvian Bark! 

On Divers Celebrities: 

The doorkeeper said with a grin 
To a child with a chattering chin, 
"This wisdom and virtue, 
I think it won't hurt you; 
Come in, little kiddie, come in!" 

Said the member from Londonderry 
*'l much prefer to have nary 

60 



A law upon game. 
Please abolish that same, 
It is very contemptible, very!" 

The committee commanded by Proctor 
Made a sawdust bill which shocked a 
Member (McClellan) 
, Who came at her yellin' 

And skeeder-e-deedle he knocked her. 

When the Overpass matter we dinned on, 
The eminent member from Lyndon 

To eternity blew 

'The whole how-de-do" 
By turning a lot of his wind on. 



On the Bull Moose Orator: 

Hark! 'Tis Jose, the gent from Johnson, 

Singing his refrain. 
Talking all the time he wants on 

Eminent Domain ! 



61 



T5i!66le0 

On Hapgood and His Two Mortal Foes: 

O Happygood out of Peru, 
If any say aught against you 

He will soon have a tilt on 

With Coburn of Milton 
And Ryder of Rockingham too! 

On Introducing Dr. Coburn of Milton: 

A divinity doctor am I 

And a doctor of medicine he; 

So you see our diversities lie 
Not in kind but in only degree. 

Where the lines of our studying fall 
There we follow them, differing still; 

For I read the Epistles of Paul, 
And he the apostles of Pill. 

We agree disagreeably now, 
But, doctor, we may not forget 

Though no Saint of the Pillar art thou, 
Thou art a piller of saints — better yet! 

62 



If I lie at the door of the death 

Your doctoring helpeth me through. 

If you lie, little more than a breath 
Bringeth down all my doctrine on you. 

Then, medice, mortal, and worm, 

I'll endeavor your devils to ban 
If merry in terra so firm 

You will keep me as long as you can. 

On the Last Day of School: 

Now as sure as death and taxes 

Legislature's over. 
Earth flops round upon its axis, 

Just the same old rover; 

But the onset on the "offset" 

And all things like that are 
Done. Here's pay. The state which coughs it 

Up is glad you scatter. 

Though we kicked and cuffed, all quarter 

Asking, giving, never. 
Don't you kind of think we ''ort ter" 

Be firm friends for ever? 
63 



15u66Ies 

On Balaam's Livery Stable: 

Balaam, to and fro to pass, 
Bought, long ago, one little ass; 
Balaam now, grown better able. 
Builds a granite livery stable; 
And that stable is the great house 
Common people call the state house. 
Balaam's beast ate oats and hay. 

His temper was a mild one; 
But his posterity to-day 
Live on their f our-per-diem pay, 

And take no oats but wild ones. 

Balaam's beast (see Bible) got 

Excited and right in did butt. 

It took a miracle to ope 

The mouth which now we dare not hope 

That any miracle could shut; 

For when to Balaam's barn you come, 

You hear, on any day. 
From morning's dawn to gloaming's gloam, 

Resounding far away. 

From cellar door to golden dome, 

One universal bray. 

64 



I?u661e0 



BLINK OF THE MOON. 

When Bill came home at Halloween, 

The drunkest mortal ever seen 

By the blinking moon at middle night, 

He staggered left, he staggered right, 

For past the middle of October, 

It^s difficult to keep quite sober. 

He chuckled, "That was bully cider! 

By gosh, I wish this road were wider 

And went the same way all the time. 

Vd give that meeting-house a dime. 

If when the highway crooks, the dunce 

Would not crook 'round both ways at once." 

(It's understood his words came thick up. 

But when we write we skip the hiccough.) 

Then heavenward he cocked his eye. 
Threw back his head and slapped his thigh, 
While chuckling laughter shook his throat. 
Amused to see four moons afloat 



65 



TSubbUs 

In skies that used to have but one. 

All nature joined in Billy's fun 

And paid him deep respect tonight. 

Who ever saw a church polite 

Enough to poor wayfaring people 

To bow ''Good eve" with nodding steeple? 

Bill staggered, backed, and made a lurch. 

Then stopped, and to the nodding church 

Took off his hat, and with a bow 

Gulped, ''Glad to meet you anyhow!" 

There was a puddle in the road 
Wherein the moon reflected showed. 
"My head feels big as Camel's Hump, 
I guess I'll set down on this stump 
And rest awhile," Bill said. The same 
He did, and didn't miss his aim. 
The splash put Billy in a muddle. 
"By gosh it is a cider puddle 
And not a stump!" He bent and drank 
Then spat, with face an utter blank. 
And said, "There's just one thing to say, 
And that is. Brethren, Let us pray!" 



66 



He sat awhile in thought, looked silly, 
Then staggered up, for it was chilly, 
And mumbled, "Guess I ought to, maybe. 
Tell mother she must mind the baby!" 

Then blazed his anger out to see 
By yonder moonlit cemetery 
Somebody, staggering around 
And reeling over yards of gnound. 
Look straight at him in mockery 
As if he thought him drunk to be. 
Bill rushed, and o'er the culprit's head 
He raised his fist. "Take that!" he said; 
And striking, cracked his knuckle bone 
On Granny Glidden's tall gravestone. 

Oh far asquint his vision went 
Who took for man a monument ! 
Alas! O Bill, the deed is done! 
Twere better to burn thy bosom bone r 
In Hell, to make thy ribs a roast. 
Thy heart a hash, to spit thy liver. 
For deed like thine hath no f orgiver ! 



(57 



13ulJ&le0 

Oh then upstarted Granny's ghost! 
Bill gazed aghast, stiff as a post. 
''Oh who is he? Oh who is he?'' 
With eldritch screaming uttered she, 
''Who dares so wicked for to he 
As knock my gravestone over meV 
The words, so fearfully she shot 'em, 
Bill lost his balance as he caught 'em. 
And, open mouthed, sat on his bottom. 

That beldam, dead a hundred years. 
Yanked off his head clean to his ears. 
And down her coffin's empty shell 
She dumped it bounding down to Hell. 
With lank and corpsey clammy hand 
She snatched a pumpkin from the land, 
A hollow pumpkin, green and great. 
And clapped it on him for a pate. 

So Bill went home in sorry fix 
And straightway entered politics. 
One glance upon his head men give. 
Then vote him representative. 



68 



15u66Ie0 



LINES 

Omitted by Mistake From 

BUCHAN'S ANCIENT BALLADS OF 

THE NORTH. 

Hynde William was a Poet bauld 
Wha raise at half past three 

Whan inspiration came till him, 
Says *'Wull ye write or dee?" 

Nimbly, nimbly raise he up, 

And nimbly pat he on. 
And nimbly sat he doun at desk 

Until his task was done. 

Then he's awa to editor^s yetts 

And tirled at the pin. 
**0 sleep ye, wake ye, editor, 

Ye'll rise and lat me in." 

He turned him right and round about, 

That editor, did he; 
*'0 where will I find a little wee boy, 

Will open the yetts for me?" 

69 



"0 here am I, a little wee boy, 

Will open the yetts for thee. 
Now Heaven thee save, thou brave editor, 

Now Heaven thee save and see'/' 

The first an pull he gave the door 

He saw him, cheek and chin; 
The next an pull he gave the door 

Hynde William walked right in. 

Then out an spake that poet bauld 
"Now Heaven thee save and see. 

For I hae written a braid poem 
Which thou shalt print for me." 

He had not scanned a line at a' 

Nor read a line but ane, 
Before that editor lusty was 

To break his collar bane. 

"O wae mat worth ye, Hynde William, 
Ye'se get a berry-brown steed 

And gang awa to gude squeel-house 
And ken to write and read." 



70 



"0 rede me, rede me, brother dear, 

My rede shall rise at thee. 
Win up, win up, Sir Editor, 

Ye'se hear these lines o' me." 

He had not heard a line, a line, 

A line, but barely four, 
He pat his thumb until his nose 

And pointed till the door; 

He turned him right and round about, 

Wi' mony waefu' swears; 
"O busk ye, busk, my merry men all 

And kick him doun the stairs! 

"And gin he be a single man 

His bodie I'll give to thee. 
But gin he be a married man 

High hangit shall he be." 

O forty yards off editor's yetts 

'Tis twenty stairs below 
Where lies the guid hynde William kicked 

By prowess of his foe. 



71 



T5ubfile» 

Sair, sair is William^s head, 

And sair at heart is he; 
He hath for his braid poem got 

No gowd nor white monie. 

And he's awa to gude green-wood 
As fast as he could gang, 

And wi' a crack his heart did break, 
And sae this ends the sang. 

July 26, 1910. 



72 



15u6Me0 



BRIDGET O'BRIEN. 

Bridget O'Brien 
And I 

For Ireland sigh on 

The sly 
For the Emerald Island 
Of Ireland, my land, 

1 dream and I smile and 
I cry. 

But Paddy O'Brien 

I fought 
Till the fool had to lie on 

His cot. 
He was drunken and blinking; 
So never once shrinking 
I told him the thinking 

I thought. 

"O Paddy O'Brien, 
why, 



T5u66le0 

When the prices are high on 

Good rye, 
Why not stick to the water 
The way that you ought ter? 
You're a lot straighter trotter 

When dry!'* 

But Paddy O'Brien 

Would not . 
Quit keeping his eye on 

The pot 
Of liquor — its lover 
He lived in the clover 
And wobbled all over 

The lot. 

But Bridget O'Brien 

Would cry, 
The tear would not dry on 

Her eye. 
''0 Paddy, my laddie, 
O is he so bad, he 
To Satan will gad?" He 

Will try. 



74 



T5u66le0 

So Paddy O'Brien, 

The sot, 
One day had to die on 

The spot. 
In the graveyard a gash is, 
The priest with wet lashes 
Says, "Ashes to ashes 

WeVe got." 

So Bridget O'Brien 

And I 
For Ireland sigh on 

The sly. 
For the Emerald Island 
Of Ireland, my land, 
We'll sail in a while — and 

Good'hye! 



75 



T5ubblt$ 



DUNCAN BLISS. 

Grips a grief the heart like this, 

Not to have a dearie, 
Sweetheart or wife, to kiss 

When the world gets weary? 

No, decided Duncan Bliss, 

Calling on his dearie. 
That was why he stole a kiss, 

By the ingle cheery. 

Wicked work it was, I wis, 

But he didn't fear he 
Would be cuffed for kissing this 

Saucy little dearie. 

"Don't you want to marry. Miss? 

I will help you, dearie." 
"Duncan, you donkey, yes! 

Waiting makes me weary!" 



76 



TSuhmts 



LONGING. 

When gipsies in the gloaming go 
The daisied banks between, 

And orioles are singing low 
Along the village green, 

The cares of church I would resign 
And all the state's annoy, 

And be as long, in auld lang syne, 
A farmer's hap^y boy. 



77 



13u66Ie0 



THE FAILURE. 

His heart was so full that he couldn't help 
singing, 
So singing he dared. 
Some noticed with laughter, but nobody 
listened, 
And nobody cared. 

While softly the laureate poets went smiling 

Through flattering throngs. 
He crushed out of sight, with a heart that was 
breaking. 

His little dead songs. 



78 



13u66Ie0 



POLLY FOSS. 

Polly Foss the fields across 
Heard the cow bell tinkle. 

Polly, calling "Bossy, Boss," 
Came with eyes atwinkle. 

Pastures green, the bars across, 

Buttercups besprinkle. 
And they toss at Polly Foss — 

'*Ho ! Here's Billy Winkle !" 

Farmer Foss, come get your "boss"- 

Tinkle—tonkle— tinkle ! 
Polly's on the mouiid of moss — 

So is Billy Winkle! 



79 



'23u66Ie0 



SONG OF PUMPKIN BLOSSOM HILL. 

Sing a song of pumpkin blossoms, 

Yellow how they shine! 
Sprawling greener than a bean or 

Ivy crawls the vine. 

Polly picked a pumpkin blossom, 

Put it on her hat. 
Billy grumbled while she fumbled, 

''Naughty girl was that!" 

"I should have a pumpkin blossom 

Nodding on my top, 
Silly bumpkin, since a pUmpkin 

Head you carry—'' ''Stop!" 

Chasing through the pumpkin blossoms 

Tripped a tangled toe, 
Two a sprawling in the crawling 

Vines together go. 

80 



Rolling in the pumpkin blossoms, 

Soon he picked her up, 
Tousled, tumbled, but unhumbled — 

Gurgling laughter cup ! 

"Pay for picking pumpkin blossoms; 

Take your talking back!" 
Polly wouldn't, so (he shouldn't) 

But he stole a smack ! 



81 



T3u66le0 



IN HUSKING TIME. 

Hallelujah! How the clarion 

Of the rooster calls the morn ! 
Bring the basket for the husking 

Of the golden ears of corn. 
Golden is the sun, and golden 

Balls of pumpkins fill the floor; 
To the golden hills of autumn 

Open wide the double door. 

Blessed barn to face the sunrise 

Haloing the stacks of stooks. 
Rustle, rustle! We are happy 

Nestling in our cosey nooks, 
Husking corn that is as yellow 

As a wedding ring, or red 
As an apple, or the ruby, 

Or the lips of Brownie-head. 

Rustle! Rustle! Rip the husk off! 
Gurgle, bubble! Laughter clear! 

82 



15u 66100 

Rattle, rattle in the basket — 
When I find a ruby ear 

Brownie-head will let me kiss her 
Sweetest spot that I may pick! 

Rustle! Rip! O ruby kernels — 
Go away, you reader , quick! 



T5u66Ie0 



THE WITCHERY OF THE WEIRD. 

O hist ye, hist! And have ye seen 

The owl in the branches bare? 
'Tu-whit! Tu-whoo! 'Tis Halloween!" 

He hoots to the haunted air. 

In silhouette against the moon, 

On the pasture hill remote, 
The dismal cow uplifts a croon 

Out of her hollow throat. 

Devils are dancing on the green 

Now black with lifeless leaves, 
And sail the hags of Halloween 

Over the cottage eaves. 

Their broomsticks on the windy waves 

Shiver and dip, till soon 
The ghosts come creeping out of their graves. 

Under the gibbous moon. 

84 



15u6file0 

The man in the moon is grinning back 
At the witchery of the night, 

And the gibbering jack-o-lan terns crack 
A smile at the silly sight. 



85 



15u66Ie0 



OLD TATE. 

Death took the wind for a mop stick, 
He took the surf for a swab, 

He wiped old Tate from the slate of Fate 
And whistled at the job. 

'Tis a hundred years thereafter. 
But the wild old widow walks; 

Death dare not touch the like of such 
In one of her grizzled locks. 

And that is why by the midnight sky 
On the lonely Isles of Shoals 

A hag will yell like hollow Hell 
When the flood tide breaker rolls. 

And that is why I would rather lie 

Naked out in the night 
For snakes all black to creep on my back 

Than to come into her sight. 

March 27, 1913. 



T5u66le0 



OUR MAIDEN VOYAGE TO THE 
ISLES OF SHOALS. 

With an undulant motion, 

Long, lazy and rocking. 
We sailed on the ocean, 

The mal de mer mocking. 

In the midst of our laughter 

The lasses were paling — 
"Look aft! and look after 

Them!" — bowed on the raihng. 

(Now shame on the lassie, 
Before we could stop her. 

To Neptune so sassy 
As toss him her supper !) 

And still on the ocean 
Our motor went walking, 

With an undulant motion. 
Long, lazy and rocking. 

Hampton Beach, July, 191 L 
87 



1Sii66Ie0 



RHYMING THE BOOMING BRINE. 

In the laziness on Hampton Beach we lay 
And fashioned rhymes to fool the time away. 

A mother on her Baby Blue-eyes looked 
At play, and dreamily her rhy toe she booked : 

"Blue pail and yellow paddle, 

And tousled curls of yellow, 
And dimpled legs that straddle 

The sinky sands so mellow, 
The gladdest baby 
Living may be 

This bubbling little soul 
With eyes like sun-up, taking 
Delight aUke in making 

A castle or a hole.'' 

And then a lover with his heart awhirl, 
(Just ere he left us) wrote 'The Bathing Girl:" 

88 



15u6l)Ic0 

'Ten tiny toes that trip at ease 

The ocean sands of afternoon, 
A lassie tousled by the breeze — 
Were ever such laughing lips as these? 
Her legs are naked to her knees 

And white as the twilight moon, 
And laughingly the lapsing seas 

Will lave them soon — 
O blessed waves and ocean breeze 

To have the boon!" 

The green landlubber then mislaid his wit 
And wrote his rhyme without the use of it: 

"Gosh! They've got a 

Loto' 

Water 

More 'n they oughter 

In the sea! 
This is not a 

Place for me!" 

"You carnal clod!" we cried, but he was gone. 
Just as the priest gave us his rhyme to con : 

89 



TBu66Ie0 

"Why moans the sea for evermore? 

It moans that soon will be 
Fulfilled the doom foretold of yore, 

'And there was no more sea' " 

"0 strolUng sailor boy in navy blue, 

Before you pass us by, what rhyme have you?*' 

"The sapphire sea is under me, 

The sun by the zenith hung, 
The sky is like an azure bell, 

The sun its tolling tongue. 
The sky is a bluebell — we go 

Over the sky-blue sea 
With sails that are whiter than the snow, 

Bright angels winging free!'' 

When suddenly a rhyme from me they sought, 
I only wrote the simple thing I thought: 

"In Heaven there is no more sea — 

I do not ask for more; 
I only wish that there may be 
As much as sang for you and me 

On Hampton's happy shore." 



90 



T5u66Ie0 



GLIS. 

A glossy and airy j 

Young fairy is this, i 

A glorious fairy, j 

The glittering Glis. j 

\ 

Ten stars in the sky 1 

1 
And the moon doth he claim; 

He is big as a fly 

And to glory doth aim. 

He is airy and light 

In aerial dances ^ 

And fearless in fight -<j 

With the deadliest lances. 

For he straddled a bug, 

A pine needle he took, 
And he slaughtered a slug j 

That crawled by the brook. \ 



91 



15u6ble0 

No terrors gigantic 
His sport can dismay 

Or fright from romantic 
Adventures away. 

For a seed he pulled loose, 
Then he shot it in frolic 

Against a gray goose, 
Which gave her the colic. 

His courage a wonder 

In fairyland showed 
When he walked up in under 

A terrible toad! 

But he loved (and most madly) 

A butterfly gay 
Who abused him so badly 

He bawled all the day. 

She declared him too small 
For a bridegroom, but he 

Went and sucked a puffball 
And grew big as a bee. 



92 



15u66le0 

So now may he marry 
The airy young miss, 

And a jubilant fairy 
Is glorious Glis. 



93 



T5u66Ie0 



THE INQUEST. 

The minister lay dead. 

The coroner he said, 

"Did anybody murder he?" 

They answered all, ''It couldn't be!" 

"He's doubtless very dead," 

(That coroner he said) 

"I hope he ate 

No opiate 

And deadened by the dope he ate 

A suicide 

He blew aside 

His life!" 

His wife 

Said, "Oh dear me! 

They paid his salary 

Which frightened he 

Infernally. 

It is thus that matters rest: 

Igitur necatus esf 

94 



T5\ibbm 



EPISCOPAL APOSTROPHE. 

Written in 1908 on the fly leaf of Miley's 
Systematic Theology, but later spoken at a 
banquet where the writer was toastmaster and 
the two Bishops Hamilton were present. 

Mortals Episcopal, 

Ruling the Church, 
Speak, is it riskable 
We should address you. 

Aloft on your perch? 
Loth to distress you, 
Ye bishops, we bless you — 

We honor all such! 
Vos salutamus, 
Timemus, amamus, 
Et semper laudamuSy 
But why will you cram us 

With knowledge so much? 
Here in ''Theodicy'* 

95 



Little of God I see. 

Papers unpractical 

(Part of them cracked, I call) 

Conference History, 

Critical mystery 

Musty, or mythical 

Radicals, Ethical 

Tomes — you require of me 

These, and desire me, 

Sans all apology, 

Soteriology 

Plus anthropology. 

Which I must learn. 
Plus angelology, 
Plus eschatology. 

Till I discern 
How the Divinities 
Fill the infinities; 

What an infernally 
Hideous din it is 

Down where eternally 
Devils abound. 
Doctrines Arminian 



96 



T3ubb\es 

Here have I found; 
Fables Socinian 

Jostle around 
In my brain diabolical 
Aching like colic, all 

Taking a part 
In ripping the rollick all 

Out of my heart. 

But a book you abridge in all 
Ages no section — 

The dry and the muddy 
Alike I must study 
Until I've original 
Sin to perfection! 

Producing this cud is 

No part of my studies, 

But take it and chew it. 

Remembering blood is 

In the eye of one 

Hewitt. 



15u 66100 

FRAE ANE TO T'lTHER. 

A Poetical Epistle. 

Sin^ Bobbie Burns could be sae civil 
As write the muckle meddling devil, 
I think nae mortal mouth should cavil 

Gin I should write 
The friend o' mony a merry revel 

This eldritch night. 

I wi' the Muses hae my dances 
Like Bobbie — ither circumstances 
Make similar enough, it chances. 

This writing to 
That note of Bobbie's whilk enhances 

Its value noo. 

Gin I to Satan wrote (emotion 
Of sympathy would prompt this notion) 
I'd for his comfort gie this lotion: 
^'Auld Hornie, tell 

98 



"Why don't ye fill your mouth wi' Ocean 
And spit on Hell?" 

But sin' I scribble to anither 
I call your kind attention hither, 
And first remark about the weather 

The which is hot — 
Perhaps I might begin, though, rather 

More as I ought! 

Plainfield, Vermont, day number twenty 
Of May in nineteen hundred — plenty. 
High Street, and parlor of my shanty, 

My greetings go 
Post haste unto an ancient enty- 

Gruntie I know. 

(Search na' the lexicon wi' labor. 
Or carve wi' critical bright saber 
The pages o' the poet Faber 

To find that word. 
My lug aince nested frae a neighbor 

That bonnie bird.) 

99 



Wee, modest, crimson Howard Flower, 

I met thee in a canny hour. 

The stage-coach clattering o'er the stoure 

Frae Barton to Glover, 
To spare thee then was past my power. 

Thou novel-lover. 

Thy face to-night would memory borrow. 
Together oft weVe killed our sorrow, 
And when I mind me that the morrow 

Thy birthday is, 
I wish thee well in peace or war, oh! 

Next warld an' this! 

I've divil a bit o' book or money. 
Nor pickayune o' pig or honey. 
Nor ither present hae I ony. 

Though much I rue it. 
But I maun offer, sad or funny. 

The hand o' 

Hewitt. 



aoo 



13i\bblt$ 



TO J. HOWARD FLOWER: 

Because I have not heard a word at all, 

I know not if you are in Paradise, 
Or by the sexton if interred at all. 

Or dead, or sick, or single. Marriedwise 
Perchance you live with lady beautiful. 
If 'tis the last, and you're undutiful 
To her as to your friends (for instance me) 
High hangit will she wish you for to be. 

I had a friend in Glover — minister. 
Although a heretic combustible. 

On whom the medieval sinister 

Infallibles forthwith would thrust a bull 

To excommunicate all such as he. 

And some not sinners quite so much as he. 

But I discuss not here his piety; 

What has become of his society? 

I had a friend in Glover — you it was; 
I thought you were a friend eternally, 

101 



As true as any lover. True it was 

You vacillated most infernally. 
The wine of friendship, more than Bacchanal, 
Port, Burgundy and Falstaff's sack and all — 
I poured this friendship in, unskeptical, 
A leaky, squirting old receptacle. 

Though you are wise and I am rustical, 
Men save e'en suckers when they land 

'em, lad. 
You need not think to go uncussed at all, 

To this ''Quod erat Demonstrandum'^ add 
Except you write to me incontinent. 
Then write to you again I won't anent 
Or this or any other proposition, 
Though it would save you from defunct 

condition. 

What is the cause of this apostasy? 

Three years, if rightly I have read it all. 
You have to me been wholly lost, I see. 

Is it because you are not wed at all, 
While I, once bachelor, am benedict? 



102 



15u66le0 

Why, being double, I can then addict 
Myself to friendship doubly. Reason this, 
Then think how culpable your treason is. 

But you, perhaps, a lovely lady woo. 
And, occupied in plighting troth, a sis 

Like her, all starry, makes us shady who 
Are dim as nebular hypothesis. 

Or is it my religion, attitude 

In politics, or written platitude 

That makes your love no longer genuine? 

Can you afford to lose the men you win? 

O Flower, come and take an antidote 

For these abuses, bringing back a ray 
Of comradeship into my shanty, dote 

With me on Dickens, Reade, and Thackeray, 
My prejudice against the latter is 
Demolished all before his batteries, 
And if I long am gone from Dickens, oh 
My literary stomach sickens so! 

Sir Walter always was the king of them. 
Supreme the Waverley Romances are; 

103 



But you would never have a thing of them, 
And still opine the same, the chances are. 
But I won't quarrel; come but back again, 
And we will read in Twain or Black again; 
Cervantes, Hawthorne, Poe, the very kith 
Of Muses — anything but Meredith. 

By midnight oil in Hotel Richardson 
We read Arabian Nights, et ceteray 
And Wilkie, wizard's ward and witch's son — 
Of Smollet talked, and some that better are. 
I Hugo have, and Balzac, Goethe, too. 
To read. (Boccaccio is too dirty to.) 
Your A. K. G. is cheap and bad — you see 
I am a literary Sadducee. 

I read historical theology. 

The second volume of Hurst's History. 
He's dead — Salaam, and my apology. 

But where he's gone, to me's a mystery. 
Not Hell, for he is, if he's in it there. 
Too dry to last a half a minute there. 
But that is wicked — I retract it all, 
A bishop should not be attacked at all. 

104 



'bubbles 

The invitation's out, respond to it. 

Whatever books you think I'm lacking in, 
Inside your grip (tho shirts are pawned) to wit, 

Those very same you will be packing in. 
But poetry, if one should want it, he 
Would find upon my shelves a quantity. 
(That rhyme is Gilbert's. Never mind.) 

Adieu, it 
Is time to quit. 

Sincerely ever, 

Hewitt. 

Plainfield, Vermont, November 13, 1911. 



105 



15ii66le0 



EPISTLE TO MRS. NELLIE E. MORSE. 

{Before Christmas, 1911, on the wrapper of 
Miss Thaxtefs hook, Among the Isles of 
Shoals.) 

Please look at this letter, 

My mother-in-law, 
Then burn it you'd better, 

Or clutch in your claw 
And rip it ere over 

It others may look. 
(It's only the cover 

And won't hurt the book.) 
My rhymes are factitious, 
My theme is pernicious. 
Intention suspicious, 

And meter as if 
The Muses would wish us 

All carcasses stiff. 
For devoid of all matter 

None ever have sinned 

106 



ISll 66100 

With such meaningless clatter 
But Swinburne and wind. 

My excuse is that Christmas 

Is near and the Isthmus 
Of Panama I 
Could as readily buy 

As a present, so this muss 
Is all you will get 
Out of me you can bet. 

Enclosed in this winder 
Please find a reminder 

To bind a stray thought 
To the days that were kinder 

Than these we have got. 
Oh the summery breeze on 

The undulant ocean ! 
To do as we please on 

The veriest notion ! 
Where lovers may squeeze on 
The sands they would freeze on 

To day by the ocean! 

107 



For Winter (Oh felony!) 

Coming to mock us, 
Is^howling like Hell in a 

Socialist caucus! 
Olittle green cottage 

Beside the Atlantic, 
To live upon pottage 

And pleasures romantic 
In thee, it would make us 

A merrier band ! 
Oh, I want to see acres 

Of ivory sand. 
And to hear the long breakers 

That plunge on the strand, 
Far apart from the people. 

The stewards, the Ladies' 
Aid, graveyard, and steeple. 

And socials — oh Hades! 

Of lucious red lobster, 

As hot as the south, 
I would feel a great gob stir 

Around in my mouth. 

108 



TSubMts 

With Ethel and Leon 

And Nina and thee, 
I wish I could be on 

The summery sea! 

Now Leon would frolic, 

Then snooze and sleep sounder 
Than Rip Van, then rollick, 

Fish, row, and eat flounder. 
Then double with colic 

In agony grim — 

This picture is him. 

And Ethel (though properly 

Clad for her bath) 
Cold water would stop early. 

Leastwise it hath; 
For light heels to the cloud 

Did she fling, and run bold 
Far ahead of the crowd — 

"Boo ! The water is COLD !'' 
And, afraid it would freeze her. 

Petite and short kilted, 

109 



TBuUftles 

She could say with old Caesar, 
"I came, saw, and wilted!^^ 

Then home did she scamper, 
Foot fleet as the doe's, 

Too timid to damp her 
Ten tiny t — toes. 

And now I aver 

This picture is her. 

To courting addicted, 
To kisses not loath — 

This I have depicted, 
Oh this is 'em both. 

Now since I, who am writing, 

Am writing to you, 
I am not inditing 

Concerning us two; 
Nor of N. (With a thistle 

Don't tickle your love.) 
And she this epistle 

Must see and approve. 

110 



And since there's a curse in all 
Jokes that are personal, 

Mater, Good day! 
And don't think me worse, in all 

Conscience I pray, 
But pardon this bothering. 

Bad as you rue it. 
Adieu to you, mother-in- 

Law. Arthur Hewitt. 



November IS, 1911. 



Ill 



15u66Ie0 



CURSORY REMARKS 
OF 
AN AMATEUR THEOLOGIAN. 

When Coleridge, studying divinity 

From Bull and Waterland on Deity, 
Thus classified the Holy Trinity: 
"Alter — Community — Ipseity," 
And "Thesis, Synthesis, Antithesis," 
He made a misty mess, no myth is this. 
Such writers my sanctorum sanctum all 
Have filled. I wish I could have spanked 'em 
all. 

A theologian in chrysalis, 

My reading rather lacks humidity; 
A fleshly thorn I think the thistle is 

To spur my spirit from stupidity. 
If one enjoys his job, oh then it is 
As good as sitting in the senate is, 
But sitting at my desk a mess I missed 
Of better fun and I'm a pessimist. 

112 



15u fifties 

I am not writing for an editor 

And fatal fluency shall bubble some. 
I know not if I should have said it or 

Kept silence, and I may be troublesome, 
But I am going to let my rage arise 
In rhymes Byronic (not to plagiarize) 
Against these dry old tomes that weigh a ton. 
I'll blaze like flaming, falling Phaeton. 

If I were ever an episcopos 
(A strange episcopossibility — 

The church electing me would risk a pos- 
sibility of imbecility) 

I would in every town and city call 

All circles, sacred or political. 

To find those fools, the fat and bonier. 

Whom I'd appoint to Patagonia. 

My last perusals make me wearier 

Than any plodding tramp with tattered 
toes. 
I read ''has altered the criteria 

Of factuality." Of what? God knows, 

113 



T3u66Ie0 

The dictionary doesn't. Sufficient is 
Omniscience, and the Lord omniscient is. 
In proof whereof : He understands a pile 
Of things His wise ones write. Wouldst 
learn the style? 

Each simple Saxon word then Latinize, 

And puff a paragraph into a page. 
Write D.D., Ph.D.; fling that in eyes 

That view the very sight of it with rage — 
I'd rather read redundant rhetoric 
That flames as if a lad had set a rick 
Of hay afire! You'd be an ass to call 
These dry old writers less bombastical. 

They think to write; God, when He made 
them, thought 
They never should. They do. 'Tis 
laughable 
As when the stall my farmer father sought 
And found the hoped-for heifer calf a bull. 
'Twas milk, not hay, that little bossy ate. 
And these such fodder dry should nauseate. 

114 



T3u6tJle0 

Is knocking such upon the head a sin? 
I'd like to cure them with such medicine. 

I hope this talk is not inveterate. 

The pabulum with which they foster us, 
We ought to swallow it or better it, 

And muHsh kicking is preposterous. 

mea culpa! I'll be diligent 

In study, though 'tis like to kill a gent 
Like me — though every seven men or eight 
In ten this kind of thing should venerate. 

And will you tell me how in sin I can 

Remember all the monks I overhaul, 
The Benedictine and Dominican, 

Franciscan, Augustinian, and all: 
Cistercian, Jesuit, the whole of them. 
And Vallambrosa's valley full of them? 
Why popes infallible will fix a text 
Infallibly corrected by the next? 

1 wish succession apostolical 

Objections had that were removable, 



115 



15u6lile0 

But folly all and f ol-de-rol I call 

Insistence on a thing unprovable. 
Ordained by Wesley, better 'tis to break 
Succession than the sacred orders take 
From mediocrity. Red tape I see 
In Anglican and pompous papacy. 

The stately drama of the Vatican — 

My faith in this is hardly quite implicit. 
I think it not an honor that I can 

Inspect a toe pontifical and kiss it. 
This osculation if invited to, 
Icouldnotsay, 'Thanks, pope! Delighted to!'' 
And being a loveless, tempted celibate 
Is squeezing on the hooks of Hell a bait. 

I surely think it is legitimate 

To marry ministers ad libitum. 
If such as tjiey (poor things !) can get a mate 

It's mighty meanness to prohibit 'em. 
The heart must be volcanic in upheaval 
To live in loneliness so medieval. 
It is as if one had with Dante room 
Received in Satan's sorry anteroom. 

116 



And true if transubstantiation is, 

In sacrament, the taking of our Lord 
A gustatory demonstration is, 

To chew the Deity with teeth abhorred. 
Oh, surely we are wiser, better for 
Regarding ''Hoc est corpus' ' metaphor, 
Though we can never hope to fit you all 
With any earthly kind of ritual. 

But think not I lambast a Catholic 

With vengeful joy with which a naughty brat 
Who strings a wire across my path I lick, 

I have no malice in me such as that. 
Our Mother Church she is — anathema 
Be he who hateth when he hath a ma! 
But mother's daughter, she absconded hath 
Because the mother wouldn't take a bath. 

And now the daughter's dirty. The didactics 
Of Mother Church meet her disapprobation: 

Idolatry, confession, priestly tactics. 
Plus purgatory, supererogation, 

Et cetera, and if et cetera 

117 



T3ubbU» 

Is weak, then fashion words that better are; 
But I can tell you he has got a stunt 
Who tells the evils of the Protestant. 

I shall not try. I think not this a pate 
To hold conclusions hermeneutical 

Anent all failings and anticipate, 
In naming measures therapeutic, all 

The downy doctors of divinity. 

Then naming faults, if one begin it, he 

Quits not. Still, naming just the usual 

Abuses, I shall not abuse you all. 

And one rs this : While people say (and sigh) 
^'Oh truly I with Christ co-operate!" 

Home comforts at the dollar rate they buy — 
Redemption at the dime and copper rate. 

"Fm free," they say, ^'from Hebrew limita- 
tion!" 

Then give to gospelize all God's creation 

(In thank for more than Hebrew blessings, 
too) 

A tenth of what would shame a stingy Jew. 



118 



I3ubblt$ 

Their testimony may be passionate, 

Their prayer is very eloquent, I know, 
But you cannot collect the cash on it — 

It's tithe that makes the missionary go. 
And tithe will tickle, too, the treasurer 
Who serves the local church, and pleasure her. 
'Tis God's command, so don't obhterate 
The tithe until you pay a fitter rate. 

But many duties are, up here amid 

The mountains, shirked as much as is the 
tithe. 

I wish that under Cheops' pyramid 
All lackadaisicality could writhe. 

Folks think whatever happens (hazily) 

Hap-hazardly they labor, lazily. 

Of all a church's wicked ways I call 

The wickedest the lackadaisical. 

And rather than to see the Deity 
In church or vestibule or corridor. 

Some folk, I think, would rather see a tea,, 
Or supper, sale or something horrider. 



119 



15u66Ie0 

Like lotus eaters in the Odyssey, 
There many a mortal fills his pod, I see; 
Then for his dollar dinner pays his dime 
And thinks he's served his God another time. 

The glorious Gospel has no substitute 

In silly simpering society. 
For lodges, lectures, aids, and clubs to toot 

The horn is good, but 'tis not piety. 
It gives religion the pneumonia 
(Which makes a body badly bonier) 
To splash attention round and spatter it 
As far abroad as we can scatter it. 

But I am riot the individual 

To settle this, and so pell mell I go 
To cast my cares (Good-bye I bid you all!) 

Beyond the Arctic Archipelago. 
And since my tastes are cosmopolitan, 
I'm going to read a while in Smollett, an 
Unsanctimonious ass, and when he's read, 
I tardily will tumble into bed. 

November, 1911. 

120 



13\ibhlt$ 



A POSTERIOR, BUT PREFATORY 
EPISTLE 
UNTO 
ONE'S SCHOOLMATE AND BROTHER- 
IN-LAW, THE DEDICATEE. 

Dear Leon, do you know the reeve in Chaucer? 

This preface is quite different, no doubt. 
From any preface which you ever saw, sir; 

Like him, it rides the ''hyndreste of the 
route." 
You may not Uke the book I dedicate; 
Sponte sua it came to medicate 
My sorrows! It may lack in snappiness — 
It bubbled out in utter happiness. 

Like mountain springs that flow spontaneous 
Just when I get as sober as a judge 

The merrymakers miscellaneous 

Within me wake and holler out, "O Fudge!'' 

They put their shirt and shoes and breeches on, 

121 



T5ubblt$ 

And me they try their overreaches on. 
It^s always foolish, often eerie. Us 
Deliver, Lord! We should be serious! 

On wisdom's highest temple pinnacle, 
They tempt me, saying, ''Cast your carcass 
down!'* 
I answer, **Thanks! I won't! I'm finical!" 

They push. I tumble to the loam so brown. 
Though mother, when we were cantankerous. 
Spanked (with a paddle for a spanker) us, 
I cannot do a thing, I bet you all 
My books, against their pranks perpetual. 

The saints will turn me from the synagogue. 
For writing rhymes that are so frivolous; 
The governor will set a din agog. 

And say ''Such drivel don't you drivel us! 
I'll move you out of ofiice for malfeasance 
'Or other cause inimical.' Take these hence!" 
Then I will go again to legislature 
And with a bill abolish human nature. 



122 



let them rip; I read the rhymes of Byron 
Before I ever was a minister, 

And Robbie Burns my spirit did environ 

Before my wrangling set a din astir 
Beneath the golden dome, on education. 
Or Christmas trees, or booze, or the relation 
Of ballot boxes to the petticoat — 
(To rhyme with that V\\ need to get a coat, 

Or goat perhaps.) My legislative draughts- 
men, 
Some ninny says he thinks they may abolish, 
But if they kill the skill that guides the 
craftsmen 
The craft itself can hardly have a polish. 
But let them rip ! If ever I am forty, 

1 may not feel so limber and so snorty, 

But I have done my best and bide the chances. 
Come, let us read the Waverley Romances! 

The Old Brick Manse is my baronial 
Tantallon. I am pastor still in loco 

Where church and steeple are colonial. 
And eloquence and windows are rococo. 

123 



The room is cream and green and beautiful, 
The congregation patient, dutiful. 
To rural bliss I settle in my station — 
Snap! Something calls the Board of Educa- 
tion. 

A squirt-ball, halo, and anthology 

I eat for breakfast (when I have the cash) 
I mean (I make you my apology) 

An orange, doughnut, and a dish of hash; 
Then roll around the state with Hillegas 
(Compared with whom I seem a silly Gus) , 
I like the educator's company, 
I wonder if it leavens my lump any? 

Episcopal and Congregational 

And Methodist and Presbyterian 
Denominations are irrational 

Enough to say, ''0 come and weary an 
Assembly in our theological 
Departments," so I give a stodge I call 
My lectures. Leon, can you question "Is he 
A lazy man or is he mighty busy?" 



124 



lDu66le0 

I'm both. From Maine to Pennsylvania 

(This language is not metaphorical) 
IVe gone in sunny days and rainier, 

Peripatetic, oratorical. 
Last fall they said, ''0 lay aside a hoe 
In Plainfield gardens. Come to Idaho, 
And in the Rocky Mountains and in Texas 
Come, lecture to our college if it wrecks us." 

It didn't do the latter, for I couldn't 

Find time to do the former, so it goes. 
I'm writing you of matter that I shouldn't; 

But ever we have known each other's woes. 
Save talking to the teachers of Aroostook, 
('Twas shortly after I of Christmas goose took) 
And rolling o'er the plains to Colorado, 
This winter's spent in old Spruce Mountain's 
shadow. 

Oh, dust may cave and cover all my fountains, 
*'My days are swifter than a weaver's 
shuttle," 
But still I hope my ''Songs of the Green 
Mountains" 

125 



TSubblte 

Will soon be published by the house of 
Tuttle. 
I love them — mostly writ in auld lang syne, 
However they are faulty they are mine. 
And one can never quite forget the glory 
Of gloamings that have vanished into story. 

O Leon, you alone will read this letter, 

Therefore I say I love you, little loth. 
(I love perhaps your wife a little better 

But then, who wouldn't, if they knew you 

both? 
The brown-eyed little kiddie of a sister. 
If she were here tonight I might have kissed 

her.) 
snow-white marble fireplace in Dover, 
And nights that make us want to live them 

over! 

Or better yet, while whippoorwills were calling 

In woodland valleys far away from sight, 
Till hemlock knots were blazing in the falling 
Old arch of stones you built on Thetford 
height, 

126 



^u66le0 

We watcKed the lone old hilltop pine gigantic, 
And silver fog beneath the moon romantic — 
But that is sentiment! I tread the bum edge 
Of being ''lone and lorn'' like Mrs. Gummidge. 

Upon his only visit to a city 

'Tis said a rustic puckered up his breath, 
Blew out the gas, (the latter was a pity) 

Then went to bed and smelled himself to 
death. 
His clay was taken by the undertaker. 
His soul fled, fumigated, to its Maker; 
A categorical imperative 
Compelled him to complete his narrative. 

I, too, were smothered by lugubrious 

Stern Duty, spite of all her pedigree, 
(See Wordsworth) but for the salubrious 
Old bubbles such as I have said agree 
With me. I should be sunk in sod a numb 
One, dead as any drugged by laudanum — 
I'd have to gallop after the Hereafter 
If 'twere not for a world of song and laughter. 

127 



ISutmies 

When someone made in class an asinine 
Reply, you know how it would tickle us 
More than the ball game (ours alas! a nine 

Which lost) if we were not ridiculous. 
But now mine enemy's own enemy 
Hath writ a book inviting venom, he 
Will fly to you when all the boobies giggle 
Contemptuous, encamp, and- never wiggle. 

But similar unto that gaseous 

Man, I must terminate, and wipe my pen. 
The Lord preserve you and the lassie; us 

And all who love us evermore. Amen. 
(And likewise those who don't.) May you be 

rich in 
The bounties of the Lord and of the kitchen. 
Like Mary, if you think, or swink like Martha, 
Be blest in either. 

Yours for ever, 

Arthur. 

November, 1919. 



128 



SECOND EDITION 

OF 

^arp of tJ)e ilortfi 

A BOOK OF POEMS BY 

Arthur Wentworth Hewitt 



These things are what the critics say of it. 

HAMILTON WEIGHT MABIE, THE FOREMOST CRITIC 
IN AMERICA, SAID: 
"I think The Wayfarer an unusually good piece 
of verse. It appealed to my imagination which 
average poetry does not do." 

CHARLES FRANCIS RICHARDSON, AUTHOR OF 

"AMERICAN LITERATURE," LATE PROFESSOR 

OF LITERATURE IN DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 

LONG AGO WROTE OF ONE OF THE 

POEMS IN THIS BOOK: 
** Vengeance is Mine rises to real tragic power. 
The idea of a soul seeking continuous revenge in the 
beyond is one that gives large play to the imagi- 
nation. ' ' 

THE BOSTON DAILY ADVERTISER, AFTER CREDIT- 
ING THESE POEMS WITH ''GREAT BiEAUTY 
BOTH IN COLOR AND RHYTHM," SAYS: 

"Blue Hills Beyond the Green is perhaps the 
simplest bit of verse in the book, yet it has the 
charm of touching with sympathy and delicacy of 
coloring an experience common to all. 

' ' Perhaps the Seven Songs of Evening show best 
the author's power of description. **** These son- 
nets have all the mystery of light and shadow, sil- 
ence and sound which belongs to an evening in a 
country town. 

"Passages from The Bells of Eternity remind 
strongly of Poe's masterpiece, The Bells." 



THE HAETFORD COURANT WITH A REFERENCE TO 
SIR WALTER SCOTT SAYS: 

"Mr. Hewitt reminds us a little of the great 
Scotch, poet and novelist. He sets in simple effec- 
tive measure some mythical legends of wraiths and 
ghosts. The Gawky and The Shepherd's Daughter 
are merry and even humorous pastorals." 

THE CINCINNATI TIMES STAR SAYS: 

''Singularly musical are the verses of Arthur 
Wentworth Hewitt in Harp of The North. There 
are songs of love, of the soul and of nature, all of 
marked lyric quality and lofty in sentiment." 

THE BUFFALO COMMERCIAL DESCRIBES THE BOOK 
THUS: 

"Harp of The North is a collection of verses by 
Arthur Wentworth Hewitt. They express in well- 
written poesy the author's conception of the dash- 
ing of cold sea waves against bleak towers and 
rocks, love-bearing winds over sheep pastures and 
miU streams, and run the gamut of fancy, now 
bright and now morbid." 

These tilings are what readers of the hook have writ- 
ten to the author, unsolicited and of their own accord. 

A PROFESSOR OF LITERATURE IN ONE OF THE MOST 
FAMOUS UNIVERSITIES OF AMERICA WRITES: 

' ' There certainly is a good deal of beauty and a 
good deal of music in your lyrics. They are reminis- 
cent of Poe. The poems I like best are A Song of 
Her, The Wayside Tree, Blue Hills Beyond the 
Green, In Shadowland. ' ' 

AN EDITOR OF ONE OF THE GREAT STANDARD 
MAGAZINES WRITES: 

' * I have read your poems carefully, and with 
a great deal of pleasure. They are well worth it. 
I am usually somewhat pessimistic when I get a 
group of verses, because usually the verses are so 
bad. I found yours possessed of distinct merit. 
To begin with, they are not commonplace. You have 
poetic feeling and poetic ideas." 



A POET WRITES: 

"I delight in finding Eternity packt into a 
single phrase or line. I think Noma Thornton is 
the masterpiece of the collection. It deserves a 
place up beside Waly, Waly, Love Be Bonny and 
Sir Patrick Spens. " Later the same writer says, 
* ' The little volume makes more of a home inside me 
all the time. Some poems I had read only once 
when I wrote before grow better with re-and re- 
re-reading. Vengeance is Mine is full of great, 
wild imagery." 

AN ARTIST AND MUSICIAN WRITES OF THE POEMS 
IN HARP OF THE NORTH: 

' * They are music, they are pictures, they are the 
poems I like best of any poetry in all this world." 




ORDER 
FROM 

THE TUTTLE COMPANY, Rutland, Vt. 
$1.50 POSTPAID 



